Mindset of the Olympic Weightlifter
Carol Dweck is a distinguished professor and well-published researcher in Psychology who has taught at the universities of Columbia, Harvard, Illinois and Stanford where she is still a member of faculty. In 2006 Dweck published an influential book entitled Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. Dweck theorised a continuum between believing that one’s abilities are innate and believing that one’s abilities are based on hard work and learning. According to Dweck, if a person believes that their potential is governed by innate factors then they have a “fixed mindset”. Whereas, if a person believes their potential is governed by their individual effort and learning, then they have a “growth mindset”. Importantly, Dweck’s view was that people who are high-achievers have a Growth Mindset.
| Component | Fixed Mindset | Growth Mindset |
| Ultimate Potential | The athlete’s ultimate potential is dictated by genetics | The athlete’s ultimate potential is dictated to some degree by genetics and but mostly by what they can learn about the training process. |
| Believing that the limit of your potential is already written in stone. | Believing that the limit of your potential depends on factors you can control | |
| Basing your belief about what you can achieve by what others have achieved before you in the same environment. The same factors that controlled them, also control you. | Believing that there is no reason why you cannot improve beyond what others have done before you in the same environment provided you can learn more | |
| Training Effort | The struggle experienced in training is a problem, find a solution to fix it | The struggle experienced in training is a part of life, embrace it, it has value |
| Obstacles to increased training, lead to self-doubt and lowered expectations | Obstacles to increased training, lead to increased efforts to find solutions | |
| Learning | The athlete believes the coach is responsible for determining the learning process | The athlete takes responsibility for the own learning process. |
| Technique | The athlete views errors of technique as evidence of a probable ongoing problem. | The athlete views errors of technique as a necessary part of learning success |
| The athlete tends to think about their skill level in terms of some things they do well and some things they don’t do well. | The athlete tends to think about their skill level as a work-in-progress and all aspects can be improved | |
| The athlete thinks that their technical ability is limited by learning situations that have already taken place | The athlete thinks that their technical ability is limited by learning situations that are yet to occur | |
| Success | The athlete views success as being the best athlete (weightlifter) | The athlete views success as achieving mastery of being an athlete (weightlifter) |
| Goals | The athlete sets goals related to performance | The athlete sets goals related to process |
| Competition Performance | Lower than expected results in competition tend to diminish motivation in training | Lower than expected results in competition tend to increase motivation in training |
| Physical Prowess | The athlete attributes their physical prowess to immutable genetic factors | The athlete attributes their physical prowess to the training process they have followed |
| “Coachability” | The athlete is more interested in feedback on how their technique “looks” | The athlete is more interested in feedback on how to improve their technique |
| Drugs in Sport | The athlete attributes outstanding results to outstanding pharmacology | The athlete attributes outstanding results to outstanding individuals |
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Interesting good stuff